


And the Stars, they Sing

by kozlik



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eldritch Abomination Aaravos, Existential Horror, Gen, Vaguely Victorian, but will have hints of slash, creepy seaside towns, tagged as gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 07:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20502812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kozlik/pseuds/kozlik
Summary: Viren, an esteemed scientist suspected to have killed his friend, retreats into a remote manor he'd inherited under mysterious circumstances. This goes as well as you'd expect.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, this grew from an idea I had after watching season two, and the blame for this can be put on two people. One said "Dudeeee", and the other said that this might work. So thank you both guys, you're awesome, and entirely responsible for this creation. 
> 
> This is gen with a dash of slash, with the rating for creepy imagery of all kinds, some amount of gore, and Aaravos being pretty. Viren is a jerk in this, but then again, he's also a jerk in canon.

A thick envelope bearing the official seal of Elarion & Co, a quite reputable legal office, containing a letter, and a key, is brought by a courier at a rather convenient time. It is the day after Opeli and her grunts arrive to politely escort him off the premises, regardless of his cooperation.

  
The letter itself, which Viren reads in the evening, sitting in his quarters, cheerfully informs him that the son of one Master Ziard, last name unintelligible due to some unfortunate water damage, has sadly perished, and that the son, despite, as the letter assures, being a perfectly respectable citizen, had never married or acquired heirs by any other means.

  
As such, the writer, who introduces themselves as the son's lawyer, is taking the liberty to inform Viren that as Master Ziard's closest breathing relative, he's inherited a modestly sized fortune, as well as a seaside manor in the dubious town of Yirrik, where Master Ziard operated the now shuttered Yirrik Oil Company in his later years.

  
At first, sitting near the fire and staring at the words written impeccably in garish purple ink, Viren is skeptical. He'd never heard of Yirrik, or the Yirrik Oil Company, or of any distant relatives named Ziard. 

  
The next day, however, after being barred entrance, several times, unto the grounds of the University of Katolis, in addition to suffering through another tense conversation with Opeli, Viren actually finds himself unrolling a large map of the Five Unified Cities.

  
Under the light of an oil lamp, he pores over the artfully drawn aerial deception of the coastline. Initially, he assumes the spot meant to represent Yirrik is merely a speck of dirt, or insect waste, with how tiny and out of the way is appears. 

  
Opeli, at the end of their exchange of differing opinions that day, implied that she was truly set on Viren having killed the Mayor, a great visionary and pillar of community, as Viren was the last one to see him before his tragic early death. She refused any appeals to reason, even after Viren explained numerous times that Mayor Harrow was one of his dearest, oldest, friends.

  
The dubiously literate broad remained unconvinced, however, and even threatened to alert the relevant authorities, and have them descend upon Viren's home after dark, to bring him to justice and so forth. More relevantly, she also implied she had the ability to ruin Claudia's budding career. 

  
While Viren does think such implication was a rather blatant stretch of the truth, he knows he wouldn't forgive himself if he were to become a cause of trouble for Claudia. His daughter is brilliant, with such a bright future ahead of her, and had been recently accepted as an adjutant in the department of Natural History in the University of Katolis.

  
He could disappear for a couple of weeks, until the shock over the Mayor's death fades, or a guilty party is found. It has been years since he left Katolis for anything other than work, with the last occurring before his wife voiced her unhappiness and left. 

  
And it is said that sea air is good for the joints, Viren tells himself as he packs all of his writings, as well as several interesting and valuable specimen packed in formaldehyde, now wrapped in old newspapers, and purchases a two way ticket to Yirrik, to the bafflement of the boy manning the ticket booth.

  
The key, heavy brass inlaid with opaque violet stones, potentially natural, even, is a constant weight in the pocket of his coat. The train leaves late, from some tiny platform the the back of the station, the boards on which are full of yellowed, peeling, posters advertising shows from some years ago. 

  
There are only two other passengers, both of them unsavory types, reeking of the substances such types routinely partake in. Viren makes an effort to put as much distance between himself and the two as the narrow platform allows. 

  
He makes sure to remind himself that the arrangement is temporary, and that Claudia will contact him by telegram as soon as she deems the situation sufficiently diffused. 

  
#

  
It is clear the morning Viren arrives at Yirrik, carrying three suitcases containing the most important of his life's work. The season is early spring, and the snow had is not fully thawed. Patches of it all strewn around the stone platform, mixed with dirt, looking more like pale liquid mud than true snow.

  
The air is cold, yet it cannot be called crisp. It tastes of brine. In the rising sun, the sea glows. The few ramshackle buildings visible beyond the opposite platform seem like shadows against the light. 

  
Viren scoffs. Evidently, the quaint seaside town of Yirrik is even more of a derelict provincial dump than the train ride here led him to believe, even after the final hours of it consisted of being restlessly jolted around in a completely empty wagon, staring at the barren cliffs passing outside the window as the sun rose.

  
The station itself is as deserted as the train was during the final hours of the trip. As Viren makes his way down into the station's building, cursing and attempting to maneuver his suitcases in addition to his cane, he still fails to notice any signs of life.

  
The tiled walls appear bleakly greenish in the light, and are covered in several crude scribbles. Courtesy of the local youngsters lacking any true entertainment, Viren assumes. The ticket office is empty, with the grates in its cracked window fully rusted.

  
On the other side of the station, Viren encounters the first sign of life since his arrival. A youth, with impossibly white hair for one his age, is leaning on a street lamp near what is likely meant to be a road, but resembles a field more, what with all the weeds between the rocks paving it.

  
Viren coughs, pointedly.

  
The youth jumps in place, before turning to look at him. His tan face face turns as pale as his hair for a moment. It is as if he's seen some ghastly visage, rather than a distinguished gentleman, who merely wishes to ask for directions.

  
"Not many visitors round here." The youth, who turns out to be a she wearing surprisingly clean boy's clothes, says, having composed herself. Her accent is rather peculiar. Viren cannot pinpoint it's precise origin. A local dialect, perhaps, rather than a true accent?

  
"I'd assume not." Viren wouldn't have subjected himself to this place under any other circumstances, and cannot imagine anyone else doing so. He runs his fingers over the head of the cane, tracing the smooth surface of the stone set into the handle. 

  
The girl stares, impassive, for awhile. Her gaze is directed at the station, rather than at Viren himself. Country folk, so uncivilized. 

  
"So, what'd you want?" She asks.

  
The question catches Viren by surprise, though not due to the boorishness on display. He'd assumed, by now, that he might as well set out for the buildings barely visible further down the road, and hope that he might encounter another of the locals there.

  
Then again, if he does, they might not be any more inclined to accommodate him than this young lady.

  
Having stumbled upon this thought, Viren digs into his coat, searching for the letter. The piece of expensive paper is in a sorry state by now, after having been crumpled and straightened several times over the past few hours.. 

  
"Moonstone Manor. It is my understanding that it is somewhere in this wonderful town." He finally says, having found the poor letter, and read the name once more as a final precaution.

  
No matter how many times Viren read it before, he still felt the need to check whether that was truly the name of the place. Unusually pretentious names were not uncommon in the wealthy industrialist circles this Ziard likely associated in, but this one appeared unbearably pompous, as if it were some poor joke, meant to make Viren humiliate himself by searching for the place.

  
"A what?" 

  
This idiotic question is what makes Viren snap.

  
"A manor is a rather large and distinguished house, typically belonging to people other than yourself. This one in particular used to belong to the late owner of the Yirrik Oil Company." 

  
He doubts there is more than one manor to be found in this useless stain upon the earth, so either the girl is clinically dumb, or he's being made a fool of by a country hick who he doubts ever saw a book. 

  
The girl blinks.

  
"Oh. That house. It's up the road, then down. Beyond the lighthouse." She flatly offers. 

  
And then, without any form of parting, she turns around and begins prancing down the road, towards the visible buildings. Her silhouette becomes a shadow too, once she is far enough. All details becoming shadow against the glow of the sea. 

  
Viren scoffs. Country folk. And to think that he may have to spend what hopefully would only be a few months here, surrounded by similarly dense individuals. 

  
He grips the cane, and the handle of his pile of suitcases, held together by the sturdiest rope he could find on a short notice, and begins his climb upwards. 

  
The road is truly atrocious, Viren has to note, once he is, again, forced to stop in order to dig his cane out of a gap between two of the road's rocks. And, since he is, as it seems, alone, he takes the liberty to describe, under his breath, his exact feelings about the town of Yirrik, as well as its inhabitants and roads.

  
Down below, the girl takes a few seconds to make a rude gesture at the "distinguished gentleman's" back, before resuming her journey.

  
The climb appears to last a lifetime. The sun continues rising. Light reflects in the sea, making the illusion of glow emanating from it all the more intense. 

  
Viren reaches a plateau nestled amongst the cliffs.

  
There are houses here as well, but they appear abandoned. Slightly higher, on the edge of the plateau, there a wreck that might've been a lighthouse at one point or another, but now looks merely like a circular stone pile. 

  
In the past, the houses might've even been nice. There are signs of it even now. Dried out hedges mark what used to be small gardens, ornate metal wind spinners jutting out of them. The rusty structures sway slightly in the breeze. 

  
The rotting wood of their walls covered in a thin layer of white. Salt, Viren concludes, after the researcher in him swipes a bit of it from the gate leading to one of the former gardens.

  
That would appear to explain the state of the road, however. The letter stated that the manor has been destitute since the Yirrik Oil Company shuttered. Judging by the state of those buildings, not only the manor had suffered neglect. Unsurprising, as any workers would have no reason to remain after losing their place of employment. 

  
Past the former lighthouse, the road changes direction, becoming significantly steeper. It snakes down the walls of something that can, with some imagination, be called a cove. These walls are unlike the cliffs below, in that they appear much smoother, as if some cliffs were intentionally shaved away to modify the landscape. 

  
What's inside the cove shouldn't have come as a surprise, but Viren still finds the sight shocking.

  
Down below, in the shallows, a structure looms. The water beneath appears black in absence of sunlight. Metal pipes, all seemingly leading to the structure, some of them still held up by several poles, some merely barely holding on in the air, give the impression on the legs of a dead insect, all brokenly curled around the body. 

  
Several chimneys ascend from the tangle of metal towards the sky.

  
The girl's confusion over the existence of a manor becomes clear now, as well. What the letter described as a manor can hardly be called that longer. It's a large three story house, built on the top of a natural cliff across the cove. While it may have been a perfectly serviceable dwelling at one point or another, it now looks only slightly better than the buildings near the lighthouse. 

  
As it leads to it, the road becomes a dangerously narrow and long ledge, supported by metal pillars digging into the stone below. It is clear some chunks of the ledge had fallen off over the years. Viren considers, for a few seconds, dragging himself back, and finding a place to stay below, in the direction the girl had left, until the next train back to Katolis. 

  
Claudia would be able to deal with any threats towards her career independently, with her being a quite resourceful young woman. 

  
Viren sighs. No, for now, and until things have deescalated slightly, returning to Katolis would have to wait. He doubts Opeli will do anything more than moan loudly, but some imbecile who listens to the likes of her may decide to desecrate his laboratory at the university, or, worse, the study in his own personal home hoping to rid the world of "unnatural sciences".

  
The thought of all the things he'd worked for, destroyed, is what gives him the courage to step upon the practically airborne ledge. It does not collapse immediately, which is encouraging, but some tiny pieces crumble off the edge, tumbling down to the beach below.

  
Viren intentionally avoid looking down, and knocks on areas of the ledge with his cane before stepping on them. He passes the structure. Former refinery, he’d guess. Like practically everything made of metal he'd encountered so far, it is full of rust. Seagulls sit upon the various metal supports, beady eyes staring blankly. 

  
Viren never did like birds. Pointless, feathery, loud, smelly creatures. 

  
The key that arrived in the same envelope as the letter opens the heavy doors with some resistance and a small explosion of dust.

  
What greets Viren inside is even more dust. Somehow, the smell of brine and sea is worse inside. It must have soaked into the wood over the years. A candelabra, covered in white fabric, hangs from the ceiling. It appears shapeless, ghostly, the light filtering through the dirty glass windows barely illuminating it.

  
Two formerly elegant staircases lead up to the first floor. They creak terribly as he ascends, dragging the suitcases after him. The wood the railing is disgustingly damp to the touch, so Viren relies on the cane, digging it into the wood of the step above him each time.

  
The first floor appear entirely uninhabitable. Several of the floorboards have lost their fight against the present environmental conditions, and have left large holes in the floor. Most of the doors are barred hazardously, several wooden planks having quickly been bolted to their frames. 

  
The second floor appears to be in slightly better condition. At the very least, the floorboards do not appear as if they'll collapse once something weightier than average touches upon them. Moth eaten velvet curtains line the windows, covered in an incredibly thick layer of dust. 

  
Most of the rooms appear empty. Unlike in the hallway, their windows are bare, and the light serves to fully expose the condition they are in. Pale wooden planks, damaged by water and moldy in places, like bruises on the skin of a corpse. 

  
Salt. Tiny white crystals between the floorboards. Like wax melting down through the cracks in the wood. 

  
Viren shakes his head. The option of heading back, and then down to the houses the girl had run off to, is getting more and more tempting the longer he experiences the house. 

  
Only one of the rooms turns out to be anything resembling habitable. It's a bedroom, the walls of which are dyed cornflower blue, of all possible colors. It faces opposite the sea, which would explain the slightly lesser defacement here than in the rest of the house. Two doors, possibly made of glass, though it is impossible to tell, with the grime covering them, likely open to some sort of balcony.

  
A spike of pain through the leg. Viren grips his cane. Not unexpected, as the trek to this hovel had been rather long and strenuous. Leaving his baggage to stand at the door, he sits upon the seemingly ancient bed, raising another cloud of dust, and spooking some of the spiders that have apparently claimed the canopy as their home. 

  
Inside the canopy, there is a drawing of several circles, forming other circles. At first, it appears merely decorative, until Viren notices the shapes engraved into the circles. Moon phases. Charming. 

  
As he reviews the ornamentation, there is a sensation. A sort sliding, prickling, down his spine, like the wind of a particularly chilly day. Or as if a presence watches him with frigid gaze from inside the slowly rotting walls. It is neither, yet both. The shadows in the corners of the canopy deepen, drawing upwards, separating from their natural location and curling softly around themselves. 

  
A crash, deafeningly loud in the silence, echoes. 

  
Viren jumps from the bed to find three suitcases, just proven too heavy to stand unassisted on a surface not perfectly flat, scattered on their side. The floor appears to have survived, and Viren sincerely hopes that the same could be said of his specimen. He'd pray, if he were a believer in anything but the forces of nature.

  
As he is not, however, he merely sets himself to rifling through the suitcase containing most of the jars, gently unfolding the paper and fabric they're wrapped in to check their integrity. Doing that, he sets aside the strange impression that occurred before. As a dedicated man of science, he'd be a fool to let a mere trick of the light disturb him only due to the eerie location it happened to occur in.


	2. Chapter 2

It is later that day when Viren finally gathers the fortitude to venture down to what turns out to be the only inhabited part of Yirrik. His intentions are primarily seeing whether a post office offering telegram services may be found there, but he also finds he wouldn’t be opposed to purchasing some manner of food, as the manor is sorely lacking in anything remotely edible.

Miraculously, all of his specimen survived the incident, and had been relocated to a bedroom corner closer to the hallway, to increase their chances of remaining intact should the floor tire of its tortured existence.

The sea no longer glows once the sun rises fully, it merely appears blindingly blue. Awfully calm too, since morning. It stretches endlessly into the horizon, glittering softly. 

Viren was under the impression that Yirrik was a fishing town, yet he hasn't seen any boats in the sea yet, and he'd had access to the sight of it since morning. Odd, as the locals must earn their keep somehow, after all, and he fails to see what other pursuits would there be in this sad corner of the earth. But prehaps this day in particular is suboptimal for fishing? 

Below the station, a ten minute's walk or so, the cliffs give way to a mostly flat strand of beach. There are several shacks jutting from the white sand here. Precisely shacks, as there is no other word to describe the constructions.

The houses above, near the lighthouse, as greatly neglected as they were, at the very least appeared to have been entirely respectable sometime in the great past. These dwellings, however, seem built without any consideration for common sense, or structural stability.

Their walls are driftwood, and stands of seashells, polished glass beads, bones and gnarled branches, hang from their sloping roofs. There are boats, a few overturned pieces outside each house, piled with nets and seaweed and snow.

When Viren limps slightly closer, his leg protesting each step, and cane sinking unpleasantly deep into the sand, he notices the carvings. They appear even more detailed than the ones on some of the manor’s furniture.

Moon phases once again, making this motive some possible local superstition. Not illogical, with the proximity to the sea. But also great fish with strange growths on their foreheads, large catlike creatures, and some odd winged beasts with long tails that end in clusters of sharp needles.

Those carvings are made with obvious skill, pointing to a high level of artistry, which would hardly be a thing one would expect to encounter in a place such as this. 

As makeshift as the dwellings are, they seem lived in. There are other, obvious signs of care. Various clay pots and vases standing near doors. Linens drying on ropes hung between two roofs. 

One house in particular, a shockingly unsafe looking two story... thing, has smoke wafting out of its open windows. It seems to be some communal space, judging by the wide open door, and backless driftwood benches outside.

Near the door, to the left, Viren notices three buckets. He peeks into one, out of curiosity, and finds himself jolting back, hand gripping his cane. It is full of something wet, slimy and slithering. Several somethings, in fact. Skinny, slippery bony things. There are so many of them they practically form a ball inside the bucket, twisting impossibly round one another. 

"Enjoying the eels?" A female voice comments, carrying with it the same unusual accent the girl had. It is a stately woman. Her stance and bearing suggest youth, yet her tan, creased skin and creaking voice point towards age. Her hair is perfectly white, but that might mean nothing, the girl near the station had white hair as well, and those two may well be related. 

Her face, despite its ambiguity, is elegant in a manner rarely present on working folk. Unexpectedly, Viren stumbles upon the thought that she must've been a stunning beauty when younger. He banishes that thought, however, as he is sure there must be something wrong about her, for her to choose life out here. 

She is wearing a draping green dress, embroidered in a lighter shade of the same color, and of much higher quality than one would expect from one living in a place like this. And in her hand is something that could only be described as a thin scimitar, the engraved, curved, blade gleaming silver in the noon sun. 

Viren finds himself eyeing the weapon uneasily. The woman smiles. She moves forward, her walk graceful. She appears to almost float over the sand, her steps making no noise. The scimitar is lifted, the blade shines, and the blue stones set into it appear like tiny blue suns. Waves crash against the beach softly, generating some barely perceptible noise.

The blade swings, and Viren jumps back even as his leg protests the movement. He feels as if his heart would either burst out of his chest and into the sand, or simply cease beating. A bird, seagull, or some other seaside pest, screams. 

He is still clutching his chest, breathing heavily, when the realization of what just occurred dawns upon him. The woman is holding two headless eels, whom she managed to catch prenaturally swiftly and imperceptibly, in one hand. The heads that used to be attached to their bodies are currently resting in her other hand, leaking blood through her fingers.

The bodies squirm weakly, appearing as if they are still alive. The water still upon them reflects the light, appearing as tiny crystal beads on the black skins.

"Lunch." The woman comments, smile unfading. Viren feels a sudden urge to pitifully slide down to rest again the wall, despite how unbecoming such behavior would be. The woman, ignoring his rather visible loss of composure, tosses the heads into the air.

A bird, huge and blue, possibly some sort of parrot, or other exotic species, though why would there be such a creature out near the ocean of the northern hemisphere is unclear, swoops through the air to catch them in its sharp beak. It then seats itself on the woman's shoulder. As it chews, it is possible to hear the bones crunching weakly.

"For me, and for Phoe-Phoe." She continues, as if nothing happened. Viren would never admit it to anyone, but he finds, at the moment, that a split second is required for the information to register in his brain. It would seem that the parrot, though it looks nothing like any parrot he'd seen before, is some sort of pet. 

The woman heads towards the partially open door of the large shack, holding the still squirming dead headless eels in one hand, and the bird on the other. 

"May I ask your name?" Viren finally blurts out, just as the last of her skirt disappears into the gap. 

At the question, a head full of long white hair appears, "How polite. You may call me Lujanne. Now come in, no point standing at the doorstep. Attracts the carbs."

"Crabs?" Viren enters, cautiously. Inside, the shack appears roomier than one might guess. Swaths of fabric, dyed in blues and greens, hang around the corners, and across some windows. Bones and shells woven unto canvas strings hang from the ceiling, like those outside, except positioned to form geometric patterns over the unpolished wood.

And the engravings are here, too. They are as masterfully crafted as the ones outside, except dyed with the same level of skill. Especially the winged beasts, dyed an almost silver shade of blue, appears about to fly out of the driftwood they're carved into and outside, towards the sea. Why would a bunch of fisherman bother with such delicate, time consuming, ornamentation, especially on wooden buildings this close to water?

A light tap on his shoulder tears him away from his speculation. Lujanne holds her hands to his face, having achieved his attention. At first, Viren fails to notice anything wrong, and once he realizes, he has to take a few moments to marvel at such a curiosity.

Both of her hands have only four awfully long fingers, with the pinkies being missing. There are no stumps, or scars of any sort. Merely slightly wrinkled tan skin where the missing fingers should've been. 

"Pinkies!" Viren blurts out. Only after the word left his mouth, he realizes how crass he may come across, though he doubts that an individual who made a choice to live in a driftwood shack would be easily insulted.

"Yes. The crabs have eaten them. They enjoy pinkies, but would also gladly eat all other fingers." The smile is still unbudging, makes one wonder if this Lujanne has it somehow etched it into her features. "They pinch sometimes, when they're stuck in the nets, and if they pinch wrongly then..." 

Having finished her ghastly tale, the woman bursts into cheerful laughter. 

Viren truly doubts her tale. It sounds like some fable one might tell children in the evenings, to motivate them to behave appropriately. Though it is widely known that those sorts of tales occasionally grow into local superstition, especially at isolated backwaters where none can dispute them. 

Though the lack of finger, on both hands, apparently since birth, is truly a curious phenomenon. Viren had read about the inborn lack of one, occasionally two fingers, but rarely on both limbs. He wonders whether any other locals may possess such a deformity.

Lujanne, meanwhile, seemingly unbothered by his silence, begins cleaning the freshly killed eels over a bowl. As before, her skills with a sword are disturbingly impressive. The slippery bodies get sliced cleanly across, and then the curved part of the weapon is used to cleanly scoop out the still pulsing guts.

"I doubt it is my business, but I cannot help but wonder what would one such as yourself hope to find out here." She remarks as she delicately separates the thin bones from the glistening, coral pink flesh.

The sight is oddly mesmerizing, especially as the scimitar is still being used, instead of a knife, or some more suitable device. The curved part is used to catch the tiny ribs, and then the weapon is moved upwards and back, making the newly freed bone slide upon its curve. The procedure is then repeated on the next bone, until only the spine remains attached.

"Well?" Lujanne asks lightly. Her tone, ever so mild, takes on a sinister bent once there is blood over her strange hands. 

"Rest. Some fresh air. I was wondering..." Viren offers. He watches on, despite the inexplicable disgust rising somewhere at the back of his throat, as Lujanne lifts the end of the spine with two long fingers, and pulls. The skeleton, fully intact besides the head, comes off cleanly.

A white, delicate structure, stained red. 

She seems satisfied as she swings it round at bit between her fingers, before dropping it into the bowl. "There are other, more engaging places one could find those things. And you were wondering?"

Four empty fleshy tubes, slippery grey on the outside, and such repulsive pink on the inside, are lying upon the table in a puddle of blood and seawater. Next to them is a basket with some geodes, and a wooden stand bearing tiny phials full of murky liquid. Books, too, the quality sort, with colorful leather covers, bearing titles written in some foreign script, the letters of which curve softly, forming circular waves. 

The parrot jumps from his owner's shoulder for the sole purpose of shoving its oversized beak into the bowl of gore resting next to the fish. As the creature eats, it makes loud, almost gruesome crunching and whistling sounds, and flaps its large feathery wings. 

Lujanne looks upon the entirely revolting sight fondly while rummaging through some shelves hanging from a hook bolted to the wall.

Viren clears his throat as he finally manages to tear his sight from the table, "I do not with to impose, I was merely wondering whether a telegraph machine may be found in this town, and whether there is a location to purchase food and drink."

"Hm. If you tolerate fish, I'd not be opposed to providing you with food so long you pay. The machine you require, however, would be a problem." Lujanne says. She has retrieved several long metal skewers and had begun threading the tubes of eel unto them, forming a pattern of folds. "Do you wish to send a message, or recieve one eventually?"

"Receive."

"Then you are out of luck." Lujanne seems sincerely apologetic, "Though... I believe there is a post office the next town over. The journey there takes half a day, but some go there occasionally, to purchase what we cannot craft." 

Viren resists groaning. Of course, he should've expected the lack of post office, though the suggestion being made sounds reasonable enough if he is understanding correctly, and it is hardly the fault of the citizens of Yirrik that their town is entirely too insignificant to deserve modern amenities. 

"I'll leave a message with you then, as well as a generous payment for the imposition. The next time someone heads there, could you instruct them to stop at the post office?".

"I suppose so, though, if you're asking for my opinion, I'd say you should leave Yirrik. Go back to wherever you came from, and forget all about your visit here. This place is not for your kind." Despite the sudden harshness of her words, Lujanne's inflection does not change. Her speech remains calmly friendly. What does change are her eyes.

Previously crystal blue, then seem darker now. Deeper. As if a sudden shade has passed over them. And as she threads the next fold of eel over the skewer, the movement screams violence. The black skin bursts as the metal passes through it. 

"Respectfully, I did not ask for your opinion." Viren spits. 

"No. You did not. Your kind never does." Lujanne's eyes darken further. Blood from the fish is dripping down her hand. Viren feels anger rising somewhere inside his chest. How dare she critique him? 

Judging from her bearing, vocabulary, and the foreign books, she may well be the most educated and influential persona in this hellhole, but at Katolis, she'd be nothing, seeing as she lives here, filleting fish and, judging by all the jars and herbs lying around, acting as some sort of herbalist or local alternative a legitimate, qualified physician.

"My kind?" He asks, coldly. He would not stand and allow himself to be critiqued by some charlatan.

The silence that follows his question is so tense it can be felt weighing down the smelly ocean air. Blood continues dripping between slender fingers. Gauzy fabric flutters in the breeze. An eternity, one that is interrupted a second later by the shack's door harsly slamming open. 

A short figure, with a short mane of white hair, barges in. 

"Lujanne? Runaan says th-" The girl whom Viren encountered earlier begins, "Ah. The hu-the walking backside from earlier. So, how are you finding your distinguished house? Bit crumbly?".

After voicing her question, in a voice laden with obscene quantities of smugness , the girl appears to finally realize what she walked into, and begins a slow slide backwards, the sort that is obviously meant to conceal her plans of escape.

"I guess I'll go now." She lets out, one leg already outside. Lujanne springs up. 

"No, Rayla, stay here. I will go speak with Runaan. You will provide this person with writing utensils, so he may write a message he wishes to pass on, and then escort him to wherever he may be staying." She declares with startling finality, before storming outside, the parrot flying after her, sending the objects hanging from the ceiling swinging.

Just as well, Viren notes. Better a sulky adolescent than a strange, unquestionably unstable, potentially violent, adult. 

"Why do I get to deal with the hu- person, annoying dumb person? Out of everyone?" The girl, evidently named Rayla, voices her exasperation to no one in particular. She picks up the finished skewers, and dumps them on a small charcoal oven smoking near the largest window.

Unsafe, to keep fire near so much wood, but Viren doubts those people realize this. He also wonders about the word, doubtlessly an insult, Rayla has stifled twice already. Maybe a local term, one that she realizes would not come across as intended?

Rayla continuous glowering as she searches the various shelves. They are full of strange curiosities. Large chunks of unrefined crystal, a discarded snakeskin, twisted tiny trees growing in square pots despite the temperatures, and of course, a crystal ball. Exactly the kind of items one would expect from a hag attempting to project an air of mystique.

"Here. Write." The words are said with true conviction, and to his great amusement and surprise, Viren is handed a calligraphy brush, the handle inlaid with undoubtedly fake gold. As desolate as Yirrik is, he would've expected the locals to realize that certain convenient objects, such as pens, have been invented quite a few years ago.

Rayla, and this is hysterical, seems to take his silent wonder for genuine confusion. She lays a sheet of crude yellowish paper upon the table, careful to avoid the blood, and sets to painstakingly tracing patterns upon it with the brush, imitating the process of writing. As she does that, she explains, "You put the bristly part in ink, and then you write."

If it weren't for the entirely serious tone of her voice, and the very intense stare he is given, Viren would've safely assumed she was making light of him. For a scant few moments, he valiantly attempts to rein in his laughter, as it is hardly moral to mock an ignorant child, before failing, completely and miserably.

Truly, this is, and will be, one of the most gloriously, outrageously, hilarious scenes of Viren's life. He will treasure this memory for eternity. The tedious trip out here, and the still softly echoing pain in his thigh, were both truly worth seeing such blatant lack of knowledge about the world at large. 

As Viren laughs, starting with barely stifled snickers, and progressively dissolving into true guffawing, the Rayla's expression progressively darkens. She seems insulted. Somehow, this adds to his mirth.

"I do know how to use a brush, thank you." He finally manages, almost choking on the words.

By now, Rayla is not merely glowering. She is staring with hatred burning in her eyes. Viren had only seen such an expression directed at him once before, by no other than Opeli, ever the thorn in his side. 

Rayla slams her hands upon the table with such force the inkpot almost gets knocked over. Now that he can see them, Viren is unable to miss the fact that once again, there are only four fingers, none of them resembling pinkies. Truly a unique phenomena. Could this possibly be related to the white hair? And maybe some other, yet unknown, unusual traits, observable only in the local populace?

Focusing on this line of thought, he fails to notice Rayla storming out, as Lujanne has done minutes ago, and realizes her absence only once she is gone.The ink, brush, and paper remained, however, and they are all he requires.

Writing with a brush that's meant for a more ornamental sort of writing is difficult, but not unmanageable. The words stand out in stark black across the cheap paper. Slightly curvier than his usual script, but hardly unreadable.

67 C KATOLIS TOWER ST.  
MS. CORVUS CLAUDIA  
NO TELEGRAM YIRRIK ANY MESSAGES SEND ORIGIN ADDRESS HOPE SOON.

After some contemplation, Viren copies the message once more, below. Once both are dry, he gently rips off one to slip into his coat, neat the still present letter, leaving the other one on the table, next to a rather generous stack of bills. Hopefully, a sum larger than what the whole town makes in a year would motivate those strange folk to actually send the message, instead of tossing it out into the ocean due to feeling mildly insulted.

Then he leaves. He doubts the inhabitant of Yirrik want him loitering around, as they’ve made it clear that his presence was unwelcome, and he feels no desire to either, despite how biologically and socially fascinating the lot of them are proving to be.

As he exits the village, in unexpectedly high spirits, he feels an unnaturally cold gaze pierce the back of his head. The feeling is similar to the one he'd experienced earlier, in the manor, yet quite different for impossible to pin down reasons. Despite the sun, and the heavy woolen coat he is wearing, Viren suddenly feels cold.

He turns around, and as he notices the definite source of the gaze, finds himself relaxing. The sudden spell of cold passes. A very tall and shockingly well built woman, or maybe a somewhat effeminate man with unfashionably long, quite white, tresses, is speaking to the rather animated looking Rayla, while clearly harboring murderous intentions towards Viren.

A sibling? Certainly some sort of relative, though, considering the size of the town, it is quite possible all the inhabitants are related to one another. There are no visible abnormal defects, however, on anyone Viren had seen so far, if one ignores the missing fingers.

If anything, the people here seem comelier than the average citizen of Katolis. 

The slight chill lingers throughout the journey back, even as the sun shines brightly upon the cliffs. Viren ignores it easily, as a consequence of feeling entertained enough by the discoveries he’d made on his little excursion. He also ignores the pain and slight unsteadiness of his leg, and the snowy mud slowly soaking into his boots for quite some time. Until he reaches the lighthouse.

There, beneath the stony ruin, a horrific realization dawns upon him. The inhabitants of Yirrik never did officially agree to provide food, and now, after having their dingy lifestyle subject to accidental mockery, may decide to let Viren starve in the slowly rotting manor.

And his, now formerly, fashionable boots are so soaked through with icy liquid that he cannot feel his toes.


	3. Chapter 3

To Viren's great fortune, he discovers that the citizens of Yirrik are not prone to pettiness, and as such do take upon themselves the vital task of supplying him with foodstuff, consisting of dried fish, various local vegetation, and significant amounts of some airy, remarkably tasteless, bread. The good people of the beach shacks, however, are not without a vindictive streak, which manifests itself in them leaving their meager offerings out near the former lighthouse, leaving Viren to drag the crates across the unsafe looking ledge independently, cursing his leg all the while. 

He, however, says nothing of it whenever he stumbles upon any of the white haired oddities, out of what he'd prefer to think is personal dignity, rather than spite. He also remains silent about the fact that the crates of salted fish he's been receiving appear to contain a disproportionate amount of tails. Unless, of course, the fish of Yirrik happen to have several tails growing from their bodies, to compensate for the townsfolk lacking fingers, in which case the amount of tails would be perfectly proportional, and as such no cause for complaint. 

Three days pass before Viren, having had quite enough, launches a solitary effort to rid his corner of the manor of dust and other rubbish. Said corner consists of the questionably decorated bedroom, and a functional bathroom, albeit one with a rather archaic plumbing, located on the other end of the hallway. 

If he were anywhere else, he would have hired someone to do this sort of menial labor, but he finds himself quite convinced that in this particular case, he is better off avoiding all sentient life, at the very least until his transgressions are forgotten. For his insults of the local lifestyle have earned him an unofficial ban from the populated part of town, the violation of which resulted in a stubborn pretense of his complete non existence, combined with several charmingly dark looks in his general direction.

Once he is forgiven, however, he'd be quite interested in launching a study into their likely fascinating genealogy, and potentially into their unusual cultural beliefs, which appear to have survived due to the relative isolation of their community, and which Viren takes to observing due to his sudden influx of time spent doing nothing in particular. 

As of now, to his admittingly inexpert eye, they seem to be some form of pagans, practicing some of the formerly widespread, but now largely abandoned and forgotten, folk beliefs based on ascribing mythical qualities to various processes occurring in nature.

All the signs, both observed from a distance, and gleaned from his brief encounter with them, point to this conclusion. The emphasis on moon phases, the various primitive decorations, the markings some of them draw upon their skin in blue pigment despite wearing otherwise fairly modern clothing. 

Yet unfortunately, he cannot connect all the information gleaned from his sightings, for all his education and research to date consisted primarily of dissecting the dead, both human and not, rather than the society of the still living. And in the current diplomatic climate, further field research would appear to be impossible. 

Running into such an unovercomable obstacle, Viren sets his curiosity aside, and embarks upon a more productive use of his time, which mostly involvs copying several of his older writings, while correcting the occasional, though of course very rare, inaccurate phrasing, in addition to adding illustrations where their presence would theoretically contribute to clarity. 

In the passing of a week, a return message from Claudia appears, tucked underneath a string used to hold together a sack of tiny, shriveled, apples, cementing Viren's opinion that the locals, as strange and reclusive as they are, are not without integrity, even even though that integrity hardly the sort agreed upon elsewhere. 

817LP WALESHIRE POST OFFICE MAIN ST.

PROF. CORVUS VIREN

UNDERSTAND. NO NEWS SOREN RETURN SOON HOPE BY THEN. LOVE

_ Arse living in the damp house, since you paid us, we handed over your message to the post building person, and now bring a message sent for you. My brother says you shouldn't come to the town unless you want to have seaweed, and less soft things, thrown in your face, and Lujanne wants me to let you know that going into the sea before the sun really rises is strongly inadvisable, as there are big crabs, and they'll eat all your fingers and your face. I don't care and hope you rot very slowly. And Lujanne reminds me to write that the small apples are for fish stew, and poisonous if eaten raw, you dumb _ <strike> _ hu _ </strike> _ old, wrinkly, sagging, arse of an individual. _

A written passage had been added below the printed message, accompanied by a truly atrocious drawing. It consists of a spherical... shape, with tiny stripes sprouting from its lower half, likely meant to represent an exaggeratedly oversized crab, as the tiny humanoid figure scrawled next to the blob for scale makes clear. The writing itself is impressive, perfectly ornate curved letters without any hint of smudging, obviously written with a brush, rather than a pen, as per local custom. Viren can easily guess the identity of the writer, and while he finds the notion of adults allowing such disrespect to go unchecked strange, he must note that the girl, Rayla if his remembers correctly, is obviously more educated than most rural children if she capable of penning such eloquent messages by her own hand, even if their contents leave much to be desired. 

The telegram from Claudia, had it arrived earlier, would have been deeply disheartening, but as he'd anticipated receiving it, Viren had found himself beginning to develop some manner of entirely inexplicable fascination with Yirrik. It grew on his the same way mold tended to grow in basements, starting in some dark corner, and slowly spreading, unnoticed until the situation became unsalvageable.

He'd begun finding, to his own great displeasure, the town and stretch of coast containing it peaceful, precisely due to their isolation. They lacked careless carriage drivers, lecture duty, loud panhandlers screaming underneath windows, or any other annoyances that plagued him on a daily basis in Katolis. Though, of course, Katolis was still infinitely preferable, being a civilized place, full of modern conveniences such as pens, and water not tasting faintly of fish. 

Yet the peace was intermingled with something inherently unnerving, which was likely the result of a gloomy, derelict, location, combined with the natural human tendency to fear that which cannot be fully explained. Shadows dripping from their natural places, their edges elongating, then returning to their designated places once one looked upon them. Sudden chills, which persisted even as the weather grew warmer. All of that could be easily dismissed as a case of the manor being an old drafty building with windows positioned in such ways as to make the lightning occasionally seem odd. 

The noise, and the sensation which routinely accompanied it, could not, however. It manifested itself as a rather unusual auditory experience, paired with a sudden urge to wander down to the old refinery, that descended upon Viren at the most inconvenient and odd times imaginable. 

It happened most regularly at the early hours of dawn, whenever the sun had barely begun its raise, appearing as a mere band of light on the horizon, barely visible above the sea. The sky would still be dark, studded with stars bright enough to remain visible at these hours, and Viren would be roused by a sound, or rather, the suggestion of sound. 

He could never hear it, not fully, but it could be felt, coming through at the very edges of his bleary consciousness, vague yet insistent. It was a sort of soft, melodic, hum that seemed to echo his breathing, always remaining indistinct enough to be dismissed as the remains of a dream. And yet in his only partially awake state, he gleaned a strange meaning from it, a voice, calling him down to the rusted vestiges of a building that had anticipated a visitor for years. 

It receded as the sun rose, fading completely by morning. 

Why had he never heeded the call to wander down to the abandoned refinery? Viren couldn’t say for certain, though he could say with absolute conviction that it was not due to the frustratingly vague warning included in the note he’d received, or some superstitious fear of the unnatural. 

No, his reluctance was a more mundane sort, fueled by the sheer absurdity of setting to clamber upon steep cliffs before the sun rose fully, motivated only by some strange illusory sensations experienced while barely awake. 

#

It is rather cold, considering the season, on the day Viren finds a body in shallow waters, in the shadow of the refinery. Initially, from a distance, the dark lump, thickly dusted with sand, appears as if it a particularly large piece of rubbish, and as such gets ignored in favor of thoughtfully gazing upon the ocean.

There is a reason for this atypical behavior, as Viren wouldn’t typically say that he is the sort to stare mournfully the sea at some ungodly hour, clad in an ensemble consisting of a long woolen jacket over an ancient nightshirt borrowed from the mansion, as if he were some sort of madman. Regret, or rather, guilt that has been distantly haunting him for a few months now. 

Viren had been awakened by the descent of the bothersome hum, and after tossing around pointlessly for what seemed a sufficiently long amount of time, he'd found sleep eluding him. His thoughts drifted to several topics, but most pointedly, to the all too recent death of his friend, a topic which he preferred to avoid wandering towards, as it still felt entirely too raw, even now, months after the fact.

Harrow was an utter imbecile, occasionally, or honesty quite often, but he was also the kindest man Viren had known. He was the sort to launch himself into doing some badly thought out charitable deed, ignoring all reason, and somehow emerge successful, ignoring any naysayers all the while.

He'd left behind a wife, a woman just as kind, but twice as stubborn, and two young sons. And the city of Katolis, whose people were often dubiously deserving of the honor that was having such a man working on bettering their lives. Harrow's death was more than the loss of man, it was the loss of an ideal, a better future.

And yet as he stared at the canopy, the carvings upon it resembling several black burrows in the darkness, he remembered his friend, rather than some abstract but noble concept. Harrow was a source of endless frustration, and often ignored Viren's entirely rational advice, but he was also the reason his limp was merely a limp, rather than the absence of leg.

On the eve of his murder, Viren had met with him. Harrow, typically for himself, presented some new scheme of his. This one in particular concerned itself with improving the conditions for the poor and unfortunate, and would have put several dents into an already depleted yearly budget. 

Viren told him as much, and had eventually left in a hurry, after a verbal disagreement between the two of them ensued, sparked by ever present differences in ideology. Yet back in the darkness of the ruined room, staring at a wall, noting the barely visible sections where the wallpaper had peeled off in ribbons, he experienced deep regret over his departure that evening. For the next time he saw Harrow, his friend was already a cold bloated corpse on the floor. 

Blood has soaked into the pale wood, forever marrying the sections it touched. 

They'd been replaced since, by fresh new pieces of wood, ones appearing marginally less faded than those surrounding them. Invisible to the unaware eye. Appropriate, considering the lack of investigation concerning Harrow's murder, despite all the inspiring speeches that had been spoken following the tragedy.

Haunted as he was by these memories, Viren found himself losing any desire to continue his futile attempts of falling asleep. A sort of nervous restlessness beset him, the sort that was unlikely to dissipate without some measure of physical exhaustion to stifle it. The noise, the call down to the shallows, still echoed somewhere in the recesses of his awareness, weaker but no less clear. 

A stroll, some air to clear his head, he told himself as he set foot outside the mansion. Yet he’s unsure why did he end up precisely here, beneath the desolate corpse of a building. Perhaps his subconsciousness had been influenced by the local superstitions after all, and this influence manifested itself in him doing exactly what he’d been warned against. 

The water glows softly in the rising sun, and the darkness of the shadows upon it distorts the outline of the mound. It is only due to him spending quite some time standing upon the rickety ledge, attempting to ignore his bothersome thoughts, that Viren notices something disturbing the outline of the shape. 

It sticks from folds of black material at an odd angle. Straining his eyes, Viren finds that the object appears to be specific in an incredibly disquieting way, as it would seem to be an… arm? The limb is barely visible between the swaths of dark fabric, due to its horrific coloring, though that could be a mere trick of the light, or so he hopes. 

The color of the skin most resembles violet, with undertones of a color best described as an unpleasant greyish blue. As if the whole arm happened to be one giant, bloodshot, bruise. No one healthy, or even still living, would have skin this color, of that Viren is quite sure.

This last fact, combined with the general shape and theoretical size of what could technically lay beneath all the cloth, raises a horrific theory. One which causes Viren to immediately increase his efforts of inspecting the lump to the best of his abilities, even though frankly, for once he finds himself hoping to be proven wrong. Yet the more he examines the pile, the more correct his assessment of what he had stumbled upon appears.

Equally curious and repulsed, he approaches the unfortunate soul he's found, his gait quite close to a brisk jog, ignoring the water soaking his boots, and the stabs of pain through his leg. As the distance separating him from the corpse decreases, more disturbing details reveal themselves. There is circular wound at the wrist, the sort that would usually result from some form of restraint, such as a shackle, or rope.

Dark liquid oozes from the torn edges sluggishly, almost dried, yet still glossy, as if it were tree sap, rather than blood.

And there are growths. White, irregularly sized, protrusions upon the violet skin. They follow no pattern, instead dotting the surface randomly. Some rare, unusual, cysts? Symptoms of some strange disease that caused the death of this individual? The skin swelling oddly after death, in the process of decomposition?

Carefully, due to the awareness that the odd, most likely currently undiscovered, dermal condition could be contagious, he leans closer, in an attempt to take a better look at his discovery. What he sees almost results in him jumping back, in a manner quite unsuitable for one of his profession.

The cysts glow, softly, almost imperceptibly, and their shape would seem angular, as if they were cut stones somehow grafted into the skin of the unfortunate sod. Which they may truly be, Viren makes sure to remind himself, since he hadn’t ever read descriptions of organic flesh glowing in any sources besides some papers concerned with luminous fish that spent their entire lives impossibly deep, near the bottom of the ocean.

Viren had seen many of the odd growths the human body appeared capable of producing during his career. Tumors filled with teeth and hair, large empty bubbles of skin, melon sized growths underneath impossibly stretched skin. Yet he'd never stumbled upon anything similar to this. 

For a moment, the thought to simply leave the body where it is, to be buried by the sea, and feed all that leaves in it, occurs to him. While the growths could be a sign of a completely unique pathology, they could also be merely a morbid decoration, stuck into the flesh of a dead man for some unfathomable reason. 

Except, just as he turns to leave, he notices a detail that had previously slipped his attention. Four slender fingers, clutching that soaked fabric. Very interesting. A valuable specimen, maybe a potential example of unusual burial traditions? Or perhaps proof of another unique trait spawned by the strange physiology of the people here? 

This motivates him to immediately grab a loose swath of wet, shockingly expensive feeling, cloth, in an attempt to expose more of the copse. With this action of his, he renders the face visible. Surprisingly, it is fully intact, besides a small cut on the forehead, and not at all swollen. If anything, the elegant, androgynous features radiate peace, as if the individual beneath him was merely asleep, rather than deceased, 

The pristine condition could be the result of the icy waters, which would also explain the color, Viren muses. The cysts are present on the face as well, larger beneath the eyes, and decreasing in size towards the ears. Limp, wet, hair, as expected shockingly white, and unusually long, curls around the ears.

And that is when the most horrifying fact of what Viren had stumbled upon finally occurs to him. Breath. The barely visible neck rising up and down rhythmically. Still alive, though likely not for long, considering the terrible color. Unfortunate. 

The fingers twitch, and lurch forward with sudden speed before Viren can think to throw himself back. They are freezing, soft, yet far too firm. Their grip is strong, entirely too strong for one on the brink of death. 

Viren had thought the color of the skin disturbing before, yet now he realizes that it was the mildest terror in the whole visage of the creature he'd unwittingly stumbled upon, and it is a creature, not a man, for man could never have eyes such as this creature has. Pitch black, with a silvery thin cornea, they swallow any light near them, sucking it into their depths, without reflecting anything upon their surface.

The arm tugs. Viren attempts to scramble back, only for his resistance to result in him tumbling into the freezing water. He scrambles for purchase in the sand, mindless with terror, while attempting to free his hand from the creature's grasp. For a split second, the hum that had bothered him throughout his stay in Yirrik echoes in his ears, far louder than it ever was before. 

He knows not what to expect, but he is quite certain that all which might happen now would not bode well for his own continued health and survival. And this though only contributes to his mounting dread, for he does not wish to part with life now, or rather, he feels as if he has much to achieve before he could do so. 

The frightful, delicate, face twists in confusion, bloodshot lips opening and closing silently, as if speaking. And Viren finds that his arm freed, which calms him immensely, causing some of the morbid curiosity he’d experienced moments before to return. 

The… thing, be it man or creature, assumes a sitting position, revealing what more of the fabric wrapping it in the process. A robe, richly threatened with gold, of the sort that would've looked quite majestic if not for the few pieces of seaweed stuck to it. The creature shakes its head, tossing off the hood covering it, spraying seawater everywhere.

Upon its head are two twisted horns, not unlike a goat’s. They stick upwards, curling back slightly, and their existence renders the entire situation so strange that Viren, out of regard to his sanity, opts to consider all that happened, and would happen, to be the contents of an unusually vivid dream of some sort.

Meanwhile, the creature sets to looking at him with what would appear to be smug approval, light glinting off the gemstones set upon its skin, before rising a hand, this one bearing a shackle, rusted and still attached to a piece of chain, and pointing upwards, in the approximate direction of the mansion. 


	4. Chapter 4

Having pointed towards what would seem to be a destination, the creature makes an attempt at standing, only to fail miserably. Its legs give up beneath it the moment it assumes a position remotely close to vertical. It crumbles down, once again coming to resemble a shapeless heap of cloth.

It is not deterred by the apparent failure. It merely rises its horned head proudly, and stubbornly persists. Yet repetition bears no fruit, neither the second time, nor the fifth, after which it remains sitting, while glaring at its feet, barely visible beneath the water, with confusion that slowly morphs into an expression implying they have committed some grave offence. 

All the while, Viren, whose initial terror and bafflement managed to evaporate completely as he watched the scene unfolding before him, ponders whether offering assistance would be wise. The creature, what with it being barely capable of walking, no longer seems very dangerous. If anything, it actually looks pitiful, at least until it rises its horrible eyes at Viren, tired of being displeased with its lower extremities.

The expression in the monstrous eyes is, once more, unbearably smug, but now also bears a hint of command. It opens its mouth, exposing what Viren decides is an unsettling amount of gleaming teeth, all very thin and sharp. Another sign of its alien nature. 

This is a dream. An incredibly particular dream. Perhaps brought on by him eating one too many fish tails before settling to sleep. Viren tells himself, despite being aware that these words are a baldfaced lie, meant to reassure him, as he slowly, carefully, drags himself backwards through the water. He would've stood up, as one usually does when escaping a potential threat, if not for the sudden inexplicable shakiness of his legs.

Viren is aware he isn't a paragon of athleticism. The creature may be incapable of walking due to some mysterious reason, but there is not reason it couldn't run on all fours. Therefore, in line with his rather sketchy assessment of the situation, Viren decides that creating a significant distance between himself and the creature would be prudent. 

The creature frowns, expression coming across as quite human, running a long, blue tongue over its frightening teeth. Examining them. Once done, its face assumes an expression of intense focus. Then, strangely enough, it begins choking, silent, long neck straining enough to render the tendons beneath the skin visible. Or, rather, Viren thinks it begins choking, before he realizes that the creature is making an effort to produce some kind of sound. 

It manages to do so, too, and fairly quickly. The resulting sound is so ghastly, so viscerally strange, that Viren finds himself screaming, involuntarily, when something inside his skull twists. He hears the horrible screech, echoing across the water. Agonizing pain flares, and ceases, and flares again, somewhere behind his eyes. Darkness crawls at the edges of his vision. 

Once he becomes capable of perceiving his surroundings once more, he realizes that he must have spent quite a significant period of time mindlessly screaming. The sun is now located much higher in the sky than it had been previously, even though he feels as some scant few seconds had passed. 

The creature smiles, mildly, lifting a delicate finger to its lips. Promising to keep silent. Its eyes swallow any light that reaches them. Pale, long, lashes flutter softly.

At this point, attempting to compose himself, head still pounding, fingers buried in wet sand, Viren realizes that he cannot continue calling the... the... form of sentient life before him a creature, as the stranger before him had just demonstrated a capacity for abstract thought, a skill that a significant portion of humanity, in Viren’s opinion, happened to lack.

It is only having mentally voiced this thought, that he realizes that the bizarre…. humanoid, blessedly still silent, is now sitting with his legs folded beneath the water, while examining Viren with a deeply thoughtful expression, one that Viren is quite unsure he appreciates. 

Frankly, Viren cannot rationalize the impulse that spurs him into doing what he does. For if this is, in some capacity, an intelligent individual possessing a degree of personhood, then Viren cannot study him while he is alive, and as such has absolutely no use for him, besides maybe keeping him around to scream at Viren’s enemies. 

He fully realizes that he should leave this odd specimen here, to fend for himself. Or call upon some of his four fingered relatives who hopefully know what to do with the fellow, should he feel particularly charitable. That would be the most reasonable course of action.

Instead of taking the most reasonable course of action, Viren offers his hand to the horned wonder, and, once he finds it clasped in a grip as bruising as before, tugs him up. The stranger almost collapses once again, but now instead of tumbling into the water he hangs into Viren, fingers digging into his coat, miraculously managing to look dignified while doing so.

He is surprisingly light, but water drips steadily from his impractical, soaked, robes, forming tiny waterfalls. That does not bode well for Viren's own clothes, which he honestly considers sufficiently wet already.

The stranger raises a pale eyebrow, expectant, and gestures, this time with his head, towards the cliff where the manor is located once more. Viren scoffs, and receives a scathing glare, full of burning, almost violent, disdain in return. It is jarring, to be treated like rabble by someone so obviously down on their luck.

And the stranger clearly suffered some misfortune, for him to wind up lying on the shore in the middle of a derelict beach, still bearing signs of imprisonment. 

Viren cannot think of any other purpose the heavy, ornate, metal bracelet, hanging from one slender wrist, could have served. He does try to, while they fumblingly, impossibly slowly make their way to the steps leading up the hazardous ledge, but finds no other explanation. 

Thankfully, by the time they do reach the ramshackle ladder, his unwanted companion regains his strength, or perhaps, remembers how bipedal anatomy must be operated, rendering him capable of walking independently. Viren frowns at this thought. Such foolishness is below him. He heard some tales of men shapeshifting into beasts, but always ascribed them to weak-minded men getting too sloshed for their own good while out in nature. 

The stranger, to Viren’s great indignation, proves very limber, gliding forward with unnatural speed and grace. Especially given the length of his robes. Viren barely managed to limp after him.

Having reached the end of the ledge, the damnable goat creature turns to Viren, who, humiliatingly enough, is still huffing somewhere back while clutching his side. The sun is now right behind his slender figure, shining through the space between the horns.The lightning renders him a dark, menacing silhouette against the cornflower sky. The stranger’s expression is invisible, shrouded in darkness, but Viren can feel slight displeasure and great impatience radiating from him in waves.

Viren mutters a few choice phrases which he had the misfortune to learn throughout some of his college adventures, the consistent cause of which was Harrow, and his inability to avoid peril. The stranger remains unruffled in the face of such vulgarities. If anything, a hint of amusement creeps unto his invisible face. 

"Should have drowned you when I had the chance, you vile mon-" Viren begins, voice dripping with venom, only to abruptly cut himself off once he notices that the stranger, now close enough for his face to be mostly visible, begins opening his mouth, smiling all too brightly with all teeth gleaming, obviously about try and speak again as revenge for being described as a vile monster.

Satisfied over Viren’s sudden loss of desire to provide further commentary on his behavior, the stranger nods once, and resumes his journey to the manor, for the reminder of which he does not bother bestowing any more of his, rather hazardous, attention upon Viren, who finds himself unexpectedly relieved over such a turn of events. 

But of course, Viren would never admit fearing some… seaweed covered mutated miscreant’s attention, except maybe due to the overwhelming smell of brine wafting from his person. Especially taking into account the stranger’s diminutive stature. He is at least half a head shorter than Viren.

Standing before the doors of the mansion, the stranger, apparently possessing no regard for the laws of nature, or healthy reason, merely taps lightly upon the door with one finger. Initially, absolutely nothing happens, exactly as Viren foresaw, taking into account the known laws of physics.

His mood suddenly much improved, Viren begins thinking of some sufficiently derivative comment to make, despite being aware that the stranger might choose to make a sound, or worse, absolve Viren of some vital facial components using those teeth of his. 

Viren’s brief chance to gloat, however, gets mercilessly squandered before he can settle on anything clever enough. An image flashes upon the ancient wooden plants, some letter made of curving lines. It appears too briefly for Viren to identify which alphabet it might belong to.

The door creaks upon its hinges, miraculously even louder than usual, and begins sliding open with incredible slowness, exposing the ravaged interior of the manor. Viren feels a sticky, blood curdling, awful manner of terror crawling down his spine. 

On the beach, for a deeply horrifying moments, Viren feared for his life. Certainly not a pleasant experience, but not an unnatural one either. Nothing that transpired before the door opened by itself has been clearly against the laws of nature. 

The stranger happened to be inhuman. Viren was aware of this for some time now, and while the revelation may have been shocking, it was not entirely unfathomable. It was merely extremely unlikely.

Yes. Merely extremely unlikely. Viren thinks, reminding himself of some paper he’d read. The memory resurfaced slowly, faded and dreamlike. The paper, published in some journal known for accepting research concerned with very unconventional topics, described several human-adjacent civilizations during ancient times.

Viren wrote off the author as a quack upon reading the paper. Still, until what just occurred, he could claim the stranger was a member of some such civilization. One still thriving in some yet unexplored land. And somehow, perhaps as punishment for a crime, he had been cast into the sea, only to survive against all odds.

Yet as the door continues moving independently, this already shaky theory rapidly loses any credibility. Viren saw many charlatans that claimed they move heavy objects with either their mind or a slight touch. These sorts were commonplace in Katolis. They camped on busy street corners, in less than reputable neighborhoods, and scammed the poor and foolish of their meager earnings. All of them could be unmasked by parting them from their accomplices and "mythical" tools.

Somehow, Viren doubts the stranger has extensive experience with sleight of hand. He could have, of course, visited the manor previously, to learn of preexisting secret mechanisms contained in the building itself. 

But the stranger's actions were too simple. He merely tapped upon the door.

Such a simply triggered mechanism seemed like an unwise thing to implement in your own home. Too easily abused by potential thieves. 

Barring that, the only explanation for what just occurred is so impossible that Viren absolutely refuses to even consider it. Until he comes to fully comprehend the implications. 

He just witnessed something contrary to all modern science. Something that may change the human understanding of nature itself. If he brings the stranger to Katolis, and shows him and his abilities to colleges, not one soul will dare to continue accusing him of Harrows's murder.

They’d be too busy pathetically vying for his attention! For the minute chance to personally witness that which defies their petty beliefs! None would dare oppose him! He will finally be granted the recognition he’d been denied, and have Opeli thrown into the streets, to be torn apart by an angry mob for her insolence!

Blood running down the streets. Chunks of light hair strewn upon the pavement, interspersed with splattered brain matter. The last scene flashes before his eyes so incredibly vividly, brimming with lurid, unbearably bright colors. Viren experiences it as closer to reality than the bleak entryway right before him. Another unbidden thought creeps in, the fleeting idea of some great, utopian, future, only to remain unfinished as some imperceptible thread snaps.

Suddenly, Viren finds himself sliding back into reality, bile rising in his throat at the still fresh memories of what he just saw. There were several of those affiliated with the University of Katolis who considered him a selfish, unethical, villain concerned with personal success at the expense of all else. Until now, he had no doubts of them being very much wrong. Yet the images, so repulsively tempting, threaten to prove otherwise.

A slight weight upon his shoulder tears him away from his increasingly tangled thoughts The stranger. Viren somehow forgot about his presence. His skin is still frigid enough for Viren to feel the cold through his damp jacket. Long fingers, with unexpectedly neat nails for a former prisoner, squeeze his shoulder. The action meant to be soothing.

Viren lifts his gaze. 

The stranger remains slightly amused. His expression seems softer now. His eyes, reflecting little, overflow with a condescending compassion, of the sort one experiences when witnessing the suffering of some sufficiently pitiful small critter. Such as the toads or mice often used for experiments.

Perfectly aware of who is the small critter in this situation, Viren glares, shoving down his unease. There must be a coherent explanation for what is happening. He must simply gather his wits, and retain them long enough for him to deduce it. As he commits himself to doing precisely that, the stranger, evidently seeing an opportunity, relocates his hand to the space between Viren’s shoulders, and pushes him forward.

Viren considers resisting, before remembering that the stranger is quite capable of incapacitating him without much effort. And that any defiance might end in him writhing on the floor while in incredible pain. Something he’d prefer to avoid if possible. Yes. Better to play along until an actual chance to escape presents itself.

Except… why should he escape? The manor is his legal property. The stranger hadn't displayed any signs of being mindlessly violent. No. As stealthily as he is able, Viren pinches the soft skin on the inside of his arm. Something is wrong. Even if the stranger’s intentions are kind and peaceful, he is obviously exerting some manner of mental influence. 

How? Some chemical solution, capable of affecting anyone inhaling it, a vial of which could be easily hidden inside loose robes? Not that the method matters to Viren. He doesn't think of himself as especially finicky, but if there is one thing he dislikes, it is being toyed with. Regardless of whether there are any chemicals involved.

One fact, however, that becomes clear very quickly, is that the stranger has absolutely no concept of personal property. Or maybe he merely considers the concept pointless. Viren does not care either way.

What he does care about is that the insolent, but very dangerous, menace plaguing him has decided to claim Viren’s bed for his own, seating himself upon it while still dripping seawater, as if such an action was absolutely normal and commonly agreed upon.

Viren decides against attempting to banish him. He is aware such an attempt would end badly, and settles on rummaging through the dusty closet instead. Moments later, having fished out some serviceable pants and one brightly colored, ruffly, abomination of a shirt, he tosses them at the stranger with as much violence as he can muster. Maybe too much violence. The pants miss narrowly, while the shirt ends dangling from one sharp horn.

The stranger, as insufferably pleased with himself as before, merely gazes upon Viren with wonder, not even bothering to rid himself of the doubtlessly uncomfortable pile of fabric hanging from his horn. The protrusions of unknown material upon his skin shine visibly in the shadow, emitting pale, ghostly light.

“If you’re about to just… sit here at least do me the courtesy of doing so while wearing clean clothing.” Viren spits, uncaring of the fate such insolence would earn him. The aggravating pain in the arse has the audacity to shrug.

Viren scrambles out of the door, slamming the door after him as if the poor piece of carpentry was the one responsible for his woes. Alas, it was not, but he honestly doubts his ability to cause any true and lasting damage to the true nuisance plaguing him. At least until he had sufficient time to evaluate the situation in a clear and rational manner.

Which is how, having grabbed his cane, uncaring of the state and manner of his clothing, Viren finds himself heading for another walk, the purpose of which is to put as much distance between himself and the stranger as he is able. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really typically add notes, but since I am updating several months later and people did read, comment, and bookmark this fic, I want to say thank you ^^  
I was/am busy with school, and with everything else happening, so I don't actually know when I'll update next, but I appreciate anyone taking the time to view it, even if I am a sporadic with replies and updates.


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